


The Naked High

by nhasablog



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Disease, Episode: s01e06 The Naked Time, Gen, Sick Character, Supernatural Illnesses, Tickle Fights, Tickling, briefly at least, my take on the naked time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 09:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10383900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhasablog/pseuds/nhasablog
Summary: A disease has infected the Enterprise crew and they start acting strangely. Alternate take on The Naked Time set in AOS.





	

Once upon a time, in a galaxy and alternate universe far away, certain crew members of the USS Enterprise were beamed down onto a frozen planet in order to examine a team of dead researchers and accidentally brought a disease with them onto the ship in the process. The results were chaotic, and each infected crew member started acting irrational which suggested that they had no control over what they were actually doing. Their inhibitions, in a way, were not as they were supposed to be, and instead of behaving as one should they found themselves at a loss of control. As Sulu swung at everything and everyone with an enormous sword Spock was crying in despair as he remembered not having told his mother he loved her. When Kirk arrived to get his first officer to help them gain control of the rapidly descending ship due to Riley having locked Scotty out of the Engineering, he of course became infected and started screaming about being loved. It was all very strange and not something they ever brought up again; not even as they were sent back in time and suddenly found themselves three days in the past. It was merely one of their many unusual adventures, and since McCoy found a cure it became just a memory in the end, seeing as no one judged another.

In another universe completely, however, a similar disease found its way onto the Enterprise, though this time it affected the crew in a different way. Having no idea what had happened to their alternate selves, the landing party couldn’t even begin to imagine what was to come as they returned to the ship, but the symptoms would become more apparent, eventually. They would become so very apparent.

“I feel weird,” Sulu said only an hour after they’d left the planet’s surface.

“Weird how?” Jim asked distractedly, his eyes scanning his partly written report.

“Dunno. Just..weird. You don’t think I caught something back there, do you?”

“You were wearing a protective uniform. I don’t see how that would’ve happened.” Still Jim looked up, concern finding his face as he took Sulu in. “But you do look a little green.”

“Do I? Oh god, I’m turning into a Vulcan.”

Jim only held his laughter back because he was very aware of Spock standing somewhere behind him. “I’m sure you’re not,” he said. “You’d be more logical if you were.”

“Was that an insult?”

“Maybe you should go report to sickbay, though,” Jim continued as if Sulu hadn’t said anything. “Just to be sure.”

He nodded and swayed a little as he stood. “Aahh. Okay. I definitely have a date with a doctor. I feel like I’ve been run over.”

Jim watched him as he was leaving, only turning to Spock once he’d left the room completely. “You don’t think-”

“I cannot see in what way Mr Sulu would have been capable of bringing a disease of some sort with him from the planet’s surface,” Spock said, and Jim noticed the almost non-existent pause. “I do not, however, exclude the possibility. He did look particularly…green.”

“Shit,” Jim mumbled under his breath. “Let’s hope Bones figures this one out quickly. If I have Sulu or anyone else dying I don’t know what to do with myself.”

The bridge felt more loaded after his last words, and he could only take it for so long until he felt like he was starting to suffocate. He cleared his throat. “I’ll go see how Sulu’s doing.” No one, not even Spock, reminded him that Sulu had only been gone for a few minutes and had barely even reached the sickbay yet.

* * *

 

“So you think it will disappear from his system completely in a couple of days?”

“Looks like it. It’s one of those funny illnesses that arrive just long enough to ruin your day, but it’s not supposed to kill you if you have the right tools to hinder it. It’s that planet’s equivalent of our weakest colds. Still, I can’t be sure how differently a human body reacts to it as opposed to other species. I’d like Sulu to stay here until he’s fully recovered. Oh, don’t give me that look, Sulu. Staying here will do the exact opposite of killing you.”

Jim had to smile at Sulu’s pout. “He’s right, Sulu. We can’t take any risks. We know very little about that planet except that a team of researchers packed up and left almost as soon as they got there. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not wait around to see what they were fleeing from. We’re leaving its orbit as soon as I’ve finished writing my report.”

“Are you planning on sending more people down there?” Bones asked with a frown.

Jim hummed. “The thought crossed my mind. It’d be good to know what caused the sickness, but-”

“It’d also risk others getting infected,” Sulu finished for him. “I can assure you, Captain, I didn’t ever expose myself to anything on that planet.”

“I believe you, don’t worry. I think we can afford to beam down just to get a couple of samples. Some ice, at least. See if there’s something in it that could’ve somehow soaked through your uniform.” Jim was aware he was just thinking aloud right now, so he snapped out of it and sent them both a smile. “Keep testing him just in case, Bones. I gotta get back to the bridge.”

“Will do, Captain.”

“Doesn’t it ever feel weird calling your younger best friend ‘Captain’?” Jim heard Sulu ask before he left the room.

Jim brought Spock with him back to the planet just long enough to grab some ice and frozen rocks, and as they beamed back again Jim took several minutes to make sure he wasn’t feeling weird himself, eventually deciding that going to Bones for a checkup just in case would be best. Bones could barely believe his ears that Jim Kirk turned up voluntarily for a checkup, which of course prompted him to believe Jim really _was_ unwell, though his test results proved otherwise.

Meanwhile, Sulu wasn’t only looking weird now, but he was starting to act it too. After having interrupted them several times to ask bold and unnecessary questions, sometimes completely unrelated to anything that was currently going on, both Jim and Bones turned to him in confusion, because what he was doing was very unlike the Sulu they knew who was brave, yes, but not disrespectful.

“Have you, uh, checked his brain?” Jim asked slowly, ignoring Sulu’s exclamation of “I’m not the one who needs to have his brain checked, Kirk.”

“It’s not a concussion, if that’s what you mean.” Still Bones walked closer, his eyes never leaving Sulu and his look of proud defiance. “Sulu-”

“Spare me the small talk, Doctor.”

“Okay, he’s out of it. Nurse Chapel.” Chapel appeared within seconds. “Get your equipment ready. We’re running a few more tests because Sulu isn’t, well, Sulu.”

“I’m more Sulu than you will ever be.”

“That’s true, but you’re less Sulu now than you’ve ever been.”

Jim left them in a cloud of confusion, and things only got worse after that.

Quickly and surely crew member after crew member started feeling weird, and some of them hadn’t even left the ship. Jim was starting to get a little freaked out as he sent person after person to the sickbay, constantly taking a moment to make sure he wasn’t feeling weird as well. So far so good, but seeing as it apparently didn’t matter if you’d had contact with the planet or not it didn’t make him feel much better.

As Bones dealt with the infected crew members, Spock dealt with the samples they’d obtained. Jim found himself constantly torn between wanting to be in the sickbay to find out what was wrong with his crew and wanting to be in the lab to find out what was causing all of this. In between running around like a madman and simultaneously being needed on the bridge, Jim kept stopping to check how he was feeling. He was so preoccupied that he barely noticed how some crew members who hadn’t reported to sickbay yet started acting strangely, and it was only when Uhura started yelling at him that he realized the disease was grabbing a hold of his closest friends right in front of him.

“Uhura, you need to go to Bones,” he said, scared for his life at the look that passed over her face.

“I know exactly what I need to do, Captain,” she replied. “The fact that you feel compelled to tell me is astounding, and I am _baffled_ that you would find that necessary in the slightest.”

“Why do you sound like Spock?” Jim asked, taking an automatic step back when Uhura stepped closer. “Please report to sickbay?”

Her smile was terrifying. “Thank you for rephrasing your sentence, Captain. I will be more than happy to report to sickbay upon your request,” she said and was out of the room the next second.

Jim took a moment to compose himself before saying, “If _anyone_ ignores the symptoms for long enough to become like that, I will personally kick your asses. You hear me?” He was met with silence, and when he turned he realized only Chekov was there. Other than the unusual frown on his face he looked pretty much the same. “You feeling okay, Chekov?”

“Yes, Keptin,” the kid replied in that soft voice of his. He seemed to hesitate for just a second before asking, “Have you come up with a cure yet, sir?”

Jim shook his head. “No cure. Bones said this should wear off in a couple of days. Though of course-” He sat down as he spoke. “-with no crew to man the ship I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do.”

“Do you think it would be wise to land on the planet, Keptin?”

Jim hummed. “I think we can stay up here for now. Mr Sulu is getting better as we speak, and with every infected crew member another one will start feeling better. At least I hope so.” Their conversation was interrupted when Spock walked in. Jim was out of his chair immediately. “Any results?”

“Yes, Captain. Quite a few of them.”

“Fill me in.”

“It seems as if particles in the ice - possibly in the planet’s atmosphere in general - latched onto our uniforms, meaning that we did not need to expose ourselves to the planet in order to become infected, and when we were beamed back onto the ship we brought particles with us that have in turn infected the rest of the crew through our air. This makes sense as it is a lot colder on the planet, so once the particles were exposed to our warmer bodies and air they mixed with our oxygen and have been able to infect us without us noticing.”

Jim was rubbing his temples as Spock spoke. “So we’re all technically infected? We just haven’t noticed any symptoms yet.”

“That is correct, Captain.”

“So these particles. They’re making us feel weird, as diseases do, but why’s it messing with our brains? What’s happening to us?”

“My theory is that we are simply, as you humans would say, high off of the amount we have inhaled.”

“We’re…high?”

“Gasses that do not kill us usually end up intoxicating us instead.”

“That makes sense. Do you think it _can_ kill us?”

“I believe it will wear off in a few days, as does Doctor McCoy.”

“But what about the particles in the air?”

“There is a limited amount of it on the ship, Captain, and as we inhale it, it gets destroyed.”

“So we’re eventually just gonna run out of it from breathing?”

“Correct.”

“Should we all report to sickbay?”

“That would be wise, Captain.”

“Thanks, Spock. For once your stoic nature has proven to help my frantic brain.”

“I am not certain if your words are sincere or caused by the illness that was no doubt infected us.”

“I’m not certain either, buddy. Mr Chekov, let’s get you to sickbay.”

“Ay, Keptin.”

They had a long couple of days ahead of them.

* * *

 

“The particles are making us bolder.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We’re technically high off of this, right? When you’re high you’re acting differently. Marijuana, for example, which was once illegal by the way, relaxes us. I think this is getting rid of our vocal filters. That’s why people seem bold to the point of being rude.”

“That makes so much sense.”

“We’re all in different stages of course, and I don’t think everyone will reach the highest stage. I think it depends on how stressed you’ve been lately. Sulu and Uhura, for example, are usually the epitome of calm and sense, and in order to maintain that amount of control they gotta be holding a lot back.”

Jim exhaled loudly. “Shit. You and I are bound to start screaming soon.”

“I meditate every night,” Bones replied. “It’s helping with the stress.”

“You think it’s helping enough to stop you from yelling at people?”

“I sure hope so or I’ve been wasting my time.”

“I don’t meditate,” Jim muttered. “I’m sure I’ll regret that any moment now.”

Bones tilted his head at him. “Do you want me to fix you up with a private room? The crew witnessing their Captain screaming at them maybe isn’t very ideal.”

“You know me so well, Bones.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

* * *

 

The disease had finally caught up with him, but Jim found it wasn’t as unpleasant as he’d been fearing. You only felt a little lightheaded, your body a little heavier, but you weren’t in pain, which satisfied him enough to finally try to get his infected crew off of his mind. There was nothing any of them could do now but wait. This high-like sickness was bound to wear off eventually.

Jim’s private room ended up just being his own quarters, and as he and Bones settled down he started noticing how they were both becoming bolder, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the words from flowing. He couldn’t even bring himself to feel remorse for what he was saying.

“It’s a little funny, don’t you think? To get to see how some people would act like without worrying about being nice.”

“Humans are usually rude and snappy if you strip them of their human decency,” Bones replied. “That, of course, doesn’t mean they can’t be nice too. It all depends on the situation.”

“Wait a second. Is this affecting Spock like it’s affecting us?”

“I think it’s not affecting him as strongly, due to his logical Vulcan side. But the guy’s bold in general, so I doubt we’d notice any difference.”

“I would’ve loved to see him lose control though.”

“Wouldn’t we all.”

Jim flopped down on the bed, finding the way the mattress rocked calmed him. “You know what I’m craving, Bones?”

“What?”

“To be tickled.”

“You do?”

“Uh huh. I usually do when I’m feeling stressed, and these past few days have been awful. A good session wouldn’t hurt at all.”

“See, this is where I know it’s the high speaking and I should probably leave it alone, but as it just so happens I would love to tickle you too.”

“You would?”

“Tickling you is fun and relaxing.”

Oh, how they would blush at this conversation in just over 24 hours, but until then their bolder selves acted after their desires, and Jim found himself pinned to the bed by his friend whose fingers were dancing over his skin within seconds. Laughing while sick or high or whatever was an experience all right. Though he could feel everything he also partly felt as if he wasn’t entirely there. His laughter felt strange in his throat, but he was still letting it out gladly as his hands battled with Bones’.

At least they would become more comfortable about having tickle fights after this.

Later, with the adrenaline still pumping in his veins and the particles still making him bolder, Jim asked Bones if he’d ever feared that this disease would kill Sulu.

“The less rational part of my brain always fears that,” he admitted. “Usually I’m terrified it will be my fault.”

“I can relate to that,” Jim replied. “I tend to fear the same as a Captain.” He wasn’t sure if they would have ever admitted this to each other without the high, much less to themselves.

Nurse Chapel’s voice suddenly filled the room. “Doctor McCoy. Mr Sulu has made a full recovery.”

“On my way, Nurse,” Bones said and stood up. “Let’s go see if this has an aftermath.”

Jim was right behind him.

* * *

 

Sulu was the same as ever, though he could remember every single word he’d said and kept apologizing profusely for them.

“Let’s all just agree to not hold a grudge over any of this,” Jim said after he and Bones had reassured him it was fine multiple times. “It couldn’t be helped.”

It became sort of like a rule after that, and once they had all fully recovered no one blamed anyone for what they’d said or done, much like their alternate selves had decided to not mention the whole ordeal. When Spock asked his older alternate self if they’d witnessed anything similar many weeks later the older Spock merely smiled fondly as if at an old memory.

Jim and Bones didn’t talk about the whole tickle fight thing, but Bones tickled him a lot more after that. Having been an activity they’d done a lot in their Academy days but that they had dropped once Jim had become Captain, it was comforting to return to familiar ground. They didn’t say so, but they could both see how happy the other was with the change.

Jim was delighted to be able to write the whole disease thing down in his report to Starfleet. Sending in a report with no specific answers always pained him, so to be able to tell them exactly what had happened and what had caused it made him feel prouder than ever of his team. Starfleet did it briefly and discreetly, but Jim forwarded their praise to his crew.

And Spock? Well, let’s just say he was happy, in Vulcan standards of course, that no one had realized how close he’d been to lose his self control.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://nhasablog.tumblr.com)


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